# tempered
## English
### Pronunciation

* Audio (US):(file)

### Etymology 1

From Middle English tempred, itempered, ytempred, ytemprid, from Old English ġetemprod (“tempered, moderate, goverened, cured”), past participle of Old English ġetemprian (“to temper, moderate, govern, cure”), equivalent to temper +‎ -ed.

#### Adjective

tempered (not comparable)
* (in combination) Having a specified disposition or temper.
    even-tempered
** 1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields:The Pyncheon Elm, throughout its great circumference, was all alive, and full of the morning sun and a sweet-tempered little breeze, which lingered within this verdant sphere, and set a thousand leafy tongues a-whispering all at once. This aged tree appeared to have suffered nothing from the gale.
* (metallurgy) Pertaining to the metallurgical process for finishing metals.
** 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter ?”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:"Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming — "Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, where the white whale most feels his accursed life!"
* Pertaining to the industrial process for toughening glass, or to such toughened glass.
* Moderated or balanced by other considerations.
    Synonyms: mellow, sober; see also Thesaurus:moderate
** 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC:The downcast eye, the rosy blush, the retiring grace, are all proper in their season; but modesty, being the child of reason, cannot long exist with the sensibility that is not tempered by reflection.
** 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:[N]obody knows how the wind is tempered to shorn Irish lambs, and in what marvellous places they find pasture.
* (music) Pertaining to the well-tempered scale, where the twelve notes per octave of the standard keyboard are tuned in such a way that it is possible to play music in any major or minor key and it will not sound perceptibly out of tune.

##### Antonyms

* untempered

##### Derived terms

* bad-tempered
* equal-tempered
* even-tempered
* foul-tempered
* good-tempered
* hot-tempered
* ill-tempered
* quick-tempered
* short-tempered
* sweet-tempered
* temperedness
* well-tempered

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

Partly from Middle English temperd, temprede, from Old English temprode, first and third person singular preterit of Old English temprian; and partly from Middle English tempred, i-tempred, from Old English ġetemprod. Equivalent to temper +‎ -ed.

#### Verb

tempered
* simple past and past participle of temper

### Anagrams

* detrempe, détrempe